After we met up and started discussing the day, I discovered he had a lot to say about how Pope Benedict’s soft, gentle voice touched him and how the pope’s comments about religion’s contributions to a secular society and the importance of the family revived his faith. So, like any editor, I told him to sit and write it down.

Here’s an excerpt from his comments, something I like to call “notes from a normal Catholic guy.”

“The words of the pope during his visit to our city have strengthened my faith in the church. As a young man who is soon going to be married and start a family, the pope’s discussion of the importance of family and the values cultivated through family life given at the White House was very personal for me.

“The most eye-opening part of the Holy Father’s visit to Washington was his discussion on secularism in America today. As a child of the 1990s I’ve frequently struggled with the continuous push to remove God from my public life. I was also moved by the pope’s historical recount of how the foundation of America was laid with a shared belief in God without forcing one specific belief over another. He clarified that God and religion — any religion — should not be excluded from the state, government or public view.”

Sometimes it’s good to take off the reporter hat and get back to the basics of being a Catholic and appreciate the spiritual side of the pope’s trip to our country.